AIME CESAIRE (1913-2008)
The allusiveness and density of Cesaire's idiom has made the rest of his poetry largely inaccessible to most of his readers, so that his reputation in later years has rested on the appeal of his plays, especially La tragédie du roi Christophe, a meditation on the unhappy state of Haiti after its overthrow of slavery. The Congo crisis which erupted in the early sixties and witnessed the martyrdom of Lumumba, inspired Césaire's second play, Une saison au Congo (A Season in the Congo), in which the playwright overtly draws a parallel between the Haitian precedent and the contemporary African situation.
The identification between the Diaspora black and the African, a prominent theme in Césaire 's work, acquires a new edge in this play, for Césaire writes here less as a committed observer than as a poet agonizingly aware that a drama of elemental scale is being enacted in the Congo: the reversal of an old order extending to a disruption of the universal order, but out of which new life can be expected to emerge. Of this hope, Césaire makes Lumumba the prophet:
'As for Africa. I know that, for all her weakness and her divisions, she shall not fail us! For after all, here, of sift, sun and water—of their solemn mating—here man was born.'
The passage conveys the symbolic meaning that Césaire attached to Africa. In all his work African served as the fundamental image and spiritual reference of his quest for a liberation that would also entail arenewal of the world. It is this quest that is registered in the following lines, in which the poet sums up the profound import of the black experience:
'They have preserved their eyes intact
Beyond the most fragile shade of the unpardoned image
For the most memorable vision of a world to build
For the fraternity which cannot but come
Albeit unsteady.'
F. Abiola Irele is Visiting Professor of African and Afro-American Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard; he specializes in Black African and Caribbean literature in English and French, with strong interests in contemporary thought in francophone Africa.
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AIME CESAIRE (1913-2008)
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View All Comments »hlogerie at 06/12/2008 11:13:07 AM
Comment:
The political polls
The polls mean nothing.
Obama is not leading,
And McCain is not behind.
McCain is not leading,
And Obama is not behind.
Just remember
In November
To vote your conscience.
Have enough patience
To thoroughly understand
The issues.
Do not act like fools,
It is not difficult to comprehend
What is at stake.
Ignore the lies and the fakes,
You have been fooled before.
Nobody wants to see an encore.
Our future is in jeopardy,
We do not want another tragedy.
Just go to the pump,
You will be stumped,
You will see what I mean,
And I am not being mean.
Forget about this black and white thing,
Go vote for the man with the best ring.
Go vote for better and greater change,
Go vote for sweet and significant change.
Obama is not leading
And McCain is not behind.
McCain is not leading
And Obama is not behind.
Just remember
In November
To vote, use your ballots,
Go vote your pockets.
Go vote the future of this great country,
Be smart and use your energy wisely.
Copyright ?? June 2008, H??bert Logerie. All rights reserved.
hlogerie at 06/12/2008 3:20:17 AM
Comment:
Tribute to Aim?? C??saire
One must be really like you from the native country to comprehend,
One must be truly like me from the tropical country to understand
And to feel at this very moment the stinging lashes
Unjustly burning the flesh of our ancestors to ashes.
One must be in our skin; one must have our blood,
And have walked under the hot sun of bad weathers
To understand the long moaning of our soul,
The suffering of our people and the miseries of our ladies.
In my heart, you remain, ad vitam aeternam, one of the fathers of negritude,
Which has inspired your children scattered all over
The world. Today, you???re gone and I???m sad. I still feel the iron collar
Of slavery smothering, strangling, and suffocating me,
And the kicks of the iron boots of this sad and inhumane history.
Brave Poet! Many thanks! May God welcome you in His Beatitude!
Copyright ??2008 H??bert Logerie
ndigo at 04/24/2008 2:50:23 PM
Comment:
Was unaware of his passing, but happy to see homage being paid to an important cultural father. The work of Cesaire and others like him has inspired people like Euzhan Palcy, Abdias do Nascimento and many others on many continents. Such work remains a garden in which we must take time to sit and reflect.